Call Recording - Call Quality Reduced and Glitchy

[AIC2000]

Hi,

Whenever we enable call recording at extension or call centre level, the call recording cuts in and out, along with the actual phone call itself - it goes quite glitchy and is relatively intermittent.

Resource usage isn't in demand (all resources well under 25% use) and enabling call recording does drastically reduce the quality of the call.

Running a virtual machine on KVM technology, with 2GB RAM, and load average: 0.09, 0.10, 0.09.

This has become so noticeable that I've enabled recording and users have started reporting call quality issues. Anyone else had this and have any ideas on what can be done to make the call recording more effective and less intrusive?

 

[AIC2000]

I've just been running some tests, and it's pretty black and white. Slight possible increase in resources when recording, however nothing to write home about. The call quality however goes from being completely fine when not recording, to stuttery and glitchy during recording. All recording settings are default, and I'm recording via setting the Extension 'record' setting to 'All'.

I know you had this issue here @DigitalDaz - not sure if you got anywhere with your investigation but it feels pretty cut and dry to me?

Is there a way to optimise call recording, or have it so it doesn't interfere with call quality? Don't really want to have to run it through a proxy just to record the calls (if one even exists for that purpose).

Thanks!

 

[DigitalDaz]

No, I didn't but I have heard no further comments on this happening either, this would be a freeswitch issue, are you using the latest version?

 

[AIC2000]

Yeah, Version 1.6.20 (64bit) of Freeswitch, but only 4.2.4 of Fusion (which wont be the problem)

I'm thinking it could be the fact it's only a single vCPU instead of maybe a dual core? Resource doesnt go over 25% though so not sure.

 

[DigitalDaz]

Perhaps, that could be the issue, maybe that's why it hasn't reappeared because all mine now will be multicore, good idea though, can you give it another core and test?

 

[AIC2000]

Yeah I was waiting until there was less demand to do so, I've now added another core and the difference is phenomenal. No further issue. Now I'm slightly sceptical as the box hadn't been rebooted in nearly a month so wondering if this is a false positive, but happy to say adding a core seems to have done the trick.

I noticed my box has now SWAP memory, would you recommend any? It's got 4gb of RAM and goes nowhere near using all of that.

Do you record many calls or is it a rarity? Just wondering how reliable recording the calls will make the box appear to end users.

Unlike Asterisk, the call recordings for extensions only start when the call is answered, and don't record the 3rd party while the extension is on hold - is that something you can enable in the settings?

I'll let you know if the issue returns, and might be that I will need to reboot the box nightly or something, however I won't jump to any conclusions at this stage.

Thanks!

 

[AIC2000]

First bit of load this morning, and it's all over the place again :-( I'm currently running the recommended Debian using VULTR - do you think it'd be good to try AWS instead? I know it will cost a fair bit more but I need to find a solution to reliable call recording and don't feel like adding in another layer is the best solution.

 

[Kenny Riley]

IMO running on a VM is best effort -- you never know if the hypervisor is the culprit of your issues. I used to run on AWS and had little anomalies that I couldn't explain or track down. I would go dedicated personally.. I went dedicated and haven't had a single issue since. You can get a dedicated server from OVH with 4 cores, 32GB of RAM, and 480GB NVM storage for about $115/mo.

 

[AIC2000]

Yeah that is my only next step after upgrading everything. Lots of success with Virtual here though, plus things like backups and migrations can be easier when hosted in the cloud. I'm thinking of trying Digital Ocean High Performance Dedicated CPU droplet to see if that helps?

 

[AIC2000]

I don't think it'll be because FusionPBX advises to install on a minimal Debian install whereas I just installed on a normal install through the provider?

 

[Kenny Riley]

I agree..snapshots and restores are the biggest benefit of going virtual. However, you can set up a database and file level backup pretty easily along with a restore script to recover your machine in the event that you need to.

http://fusionpbx-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/getting_started/backup.html

Is it as easy as a one button click and restore when using snapshots? Not quite, but it works just as fine. I would personally prefer overall system reliability compared to ease of restoring from backup.

I don’t say this as an insult because I used to think I couldn’t live without snapshots and it was a nice security blanket to have in an “oh crap” scenario. That’s why I was using AWS for the longest time, but the price to performance ratio is super expensive. I’d recommend learning to implement a proper backup and restore protocol instead of relying on snapshots. Depending on your scale, you will eventually hit a wall with virtualization at one point or another.

It’s a trade off either way, you just have to decide which option fits your long term goals.

 

[AIC2000]

Yeah I fully agree. Virtual resources end up being far more expensive the bigger you grow. For now however, it's all about balance - and while looking into system level backups is a great way to go, while resource requirements are very low virtual just makes sense for me.

I just wish recording calls would work as well as everything else. If a high performing DO droplet won't be enough, then dedicated will need to be the way forward (and I am not against that at all).

 

[AIC2000]

Tried on Digital Ocean high CPU and it is the same issue. Going to go dedicated now and see if that resolves the issue (quad core with 32GB RAM) if that doesn't do the trick I'll be gutted cause it may be a config issue which I can't see as being the case!

 

[DigitalDaz]

Tried on Digital Ocean high CPU and it is the same issue. Going to go dedicated now and see if that resolves the issue (quad core with 32GB RAM) if that doesn't do the trick I'll be gutted cause it may be a config issue which I can't see as being the case!

I'm following this closely

 

[AIC2000]

It's a really annoying problem. Everything runs so well on Virtual, and asterisk records calls fine too. FreeSWITCH however isn't coping at all. Do you have any recommended UK suppliers of dedicated servers? I thought you were running FusionPBX on VMs? Don't you use recording on them?

I have servers with Leaseweb and have had with OVH in the past, not used them for VOIP though

 

[DigitalDaz]

@AIC2000 OVH down in London should be fine.

Yes I do do recording and I have never had the complaints, what are you running the KVM on, I'm using Proxmox now.

 

[DigitalDaz]

Sorry, just realised you are using shared hosting, we NEVER do that.

 

[AIC2000]

Ah I see - so you're VM'ing but manage the host yourself, yes that is completely different and is my next step now.

OVH ordered, 4core 32gb RAM enterprise server in London.

I will let you know once it gets activated (5 day ETA??) and I have moved Fusion over!

 

[DigitalDaz]

If you are a new customer they drag their heels a little at validating you.

 

[AIC2000]

OK I got activated last night, installed and transferred over Fusion.

It's got 4 cores, a 2017 Xeon processor, 32GB RAM (irrelevant) and 2TB of disk space.

Last night (as it did with cloud VM's) Fusion worked seemingly fine. However as usual, while using <5% of CPU resources (more like 1%) it has started cutting out and being stuttery again.

I am a bit gutted to be honest, as this clearly isn't hardware (there's only one active call on the system) and it only seems to start doing this about 10 hours after a reboot (and gradually gets worse).

I've spoken to FREEswitch live chat and the only thing they could suggest was CPU - it's definitely not that at this case.